PR Catch Up

On Friday night I had the pleasure of catching up with some of the CSU 2007 PR Class.
It was great finding out where everyone has landed - from the big international agencies to small specialised boutique agencies. Despite the differences in companies, we all seem to be doing the same thing everyday - media lists and monitoring, basically a whole lot of media relations and research.

Another interesting discussion was the vast spread of salaries that we had and the difference of workloads. The well known agencies tend to work their individuals pretty hard, where as the smaller ones seemed to a have a more relaxed (and perhaps more productive) work environment. It's intriguing to see the employee programs and benefits that exist (from team bonding, massages, expensive birthday presents to free promotional material and concert tickets).

It seemed more people had delved into consumer PR - which we didn't study that much in uni. For the most part, the twenty thousand com strats we did were based upon corporate PR and events, not marketing new products and composing product guides.

The night ended well - organising for our next catch up (right near the majority of our pay days)!

can the others catch up?

I've been reading lots and lots of blogs lately, and having fun finding new ones. I've also been showing family and friends about the different capabilities of web 2.0.

I know that I'm quite capable of showing them how to set up an igoogle page, using Rss feeds and readers, searching for blogs and establishing them. However, it concerns me that in my experience, there is so much to be learnt and many of my friends have no idea about these new technologies and tools. Sure everyone has a facebook page, but thats pretty much it.

So when I'm explaining to someone who knows nothing about web 2.0, the first thing I show them is this video. It makes all the jargon a lot more simplified, and explaining blogs and RSS a lot more easier to comprehend.

The next stage though - engaging and 'joining in the conversation' comes just after listening and reading - which is a stage I still think I'm at. However, knowing how fast everything moves online is it shouldn't take long.

summer isn't summer anymore..

The hype about climate change, greenhouse gases and carbon offsetting schemes hasn't really gotten my full attention. Yes I'm all for doing simple things to conserve energy, but its difficult without seeing the benefits and effects straight away.

Sure I've noticed the weird effects on the environment - having spent the 2006 - 2007 ski season in a north eastern american ski resort. It not only freaked out the internationals there trying to earn enough money to scrape by, but the entire skiing town which heavily relied upon snow to sustain them through the rest of the year.

But the weather in sydney is changing my opinion about it all - it's definitely something I have noticed. Now its just the question of whether the weather is just changing, or the horrible effects human are having on the environment.

wrapping up 2007

2007 was a huge year for me - not only did I complete my university degree, I traveled to America, Canada & New Zealand, got a 'real job' and turned 21.

Crazy things that I've been apart of:
- played rugby on Australia Day on this field
- got frostbite in Montreal
- Stayed here on my last night in NYC
- Got a job here and did an internship here
- Drank a beer here with good friends
- Roadtripped up the east coast
- Learnt some spanish and tried to improve my japanese
- Watched sydney's new years fireworks

I should probably include something about looking forward to this year, but that would be a tad cliched.

Having seen this ad on television a few thousand times I'd thought i'd make a quick blog about it. In essence, the ad is using sexual innuendo to encourage those to believe speeding is indicative of size.

I found this ad to be targeting men, which I'm assuming is the more likely sex to be involved with car accidents. The comments made from this blog post made this ad more interesting.

The general consenus was that there needed to be a change in awareness of drivers - which perhaps could be influenced by a campaign that is not just based on TVC's, but online media as well. This concept certainly attracted international press - both Washington Post and BBC discussed the story, using it to challenge their current speeding advertisments.

However, if there was more emphasis on attracting a wider audience through using facebook and other community sites, this would have been even more effective in broadcasting across this message.

telstra tower

So after having a 24 hour trip to canberra - we did the touristy things and such, and traveled up the telstra tower, to see the nice view on the planned city that is our nation's capital.

I am however, curious to know why you have to pay to go up this tower. Clearly telstra could create more 'positive' impressions on people by allowing it to be free - maybe having a couple brochures handy for tourists. Alternatively, the $6 entrance fee could go to increasing telstra services in rural areas.

On the whole, the view was pretty good and we did pick a nice day to visit.

Home Stretch

So as 2007 is wrapping up, its nearly time for me to complete my time at CSU and my beloved public relations course. The mountains of work I have left to do in the next 3 weeks is enough to make me insane. It's actually quite frightening.

On a different note, I watched "Wag the Dog" just recently and was shocked to see the parallels with the news at the moment. In particular, the scene with the 'shoe' and bringing old shoe home. I don't doubt for one second that there was a troop killed overseas, but its interesting how a powerful film questions your ability to believe everything in the media.

I feel I have more productive things to do at the moment - so best to push on.